Stayin’ Alive: Guitars, Part 2

It would be a stretch to say that I’m influenced by jazz, because that stuff is way over my head, but I try to pick up some concepts when I can. One such concept is that of scale-tone chords, which are “chords formed by notes of a given scale.”

I used these in the chorus, with the chords following the vocal melody. “Whether you’re a mother or whether your a brother…” is just a descending line, so I harmonized on top of that to create a progression of Em7 - DM7 - CM7 - Bm7:

e|--7--5--3--2--|
b|--8--7--5--3--|
g|--7--6--4--2--|
d|--9--7--5--4--|
a|--7--5--3--2--|
e|--------------|

To accent the vocal, I played this progression with just one guitar. I did some intermittent percussive strumming on the other two guitars to add texture. (I just strummed across all six strings while muting them with the left hand - listen to “Hotel California” by The Eagles for an example of this technique.)

For the “…stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…” parts, I played straight power chords, D sliding up to E. All three guitars played the same part to provide a fuller sound. The chorus ended up being a call and response of sorts:

“Feel the city shakin’ and everybody’s quakin’…” (one guitar playing chords - call)
“…and you’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…” (three guitars playing chords - response)

For the last “stayin’ alive” (where the vocal holds the last syllable and descends), I played the same progression (E - D - C - B), but using power chords on all three guitars. To add to the general “heaviness,” I included the open low E string for the first three chords, letting it serve as a pedal tone:

e|--------------|
b|--------------|
g|--9--7--5--4--|
d|--9--7--5--4--|
a|--7--5--3--2--|
e|--0--0--0-----|

I threw in a few pick slides, too, because that’s what all the hair bands I listened to back in the day used to do. Pick sliding is one of those techniques (like two-handed tapping) I never really learned because it seems kind of cheesy. I hardly ever use it, and when I do, it doesn’t come out quite right. But sometimes cheesy is fun, so the pick slides are in there.

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